Paleoecological insights into the response of biodiversity and ecosystems to climate change
Invited Talk
Speaker Prof. Dr. Daniel Gavin, Department of Geography, Univ. of Oregon, USA
Schedule 11 September 2022 (Sunday) at 4 p.m.
Venue Auditorium, Pakistan Academy of Sciences (PAS), 3-Constitution Avenue,
Sector G-5/2, Islamabad
Zoom Link
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85467645591?pwd=ZHlGV3dXdXpURStDM2liR0dzeFNtQT09
ID: 854 6764 5591 Password: 868813
Preamble: The invited talk offers a brainstorming session at the Pakistan Academy of Sciences for environmentalists, ecologists, paleo-climatologists, geologists, hydrogeologists, bio-geographers, and climate change specialists to discuss on the paleoecological insights into the response of biodiversity and ecosystems to climate change. It will cover an overview of the insights from the recent fossil record from lake sediments regarding how forest ecosystems and forest fires change from past climate changes from the ice age to the present and the biogeographic changes of species over the same time period. The issue of climate change has emerged as a matter of increasing concern among the global communities since the beginning of the 21st Century. Pakistan has been ranked among the top ten climatically vulnerable countries in the world. Specifically, the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan, being one of the world’s most rugged and glaciated mountainous landscapes, is highly sensitive to the adverse impacts of climatic changes as is visible and being witnessed in the form of glacial melting at ever-increasing rates, extreme weather events, and the increasing frequency of devastating floods, rock-fall and other climate hazards. In particular, the mountain communities suffer from the negative impacts of hydro-meteorological hazards, with greater numbers of people migrating down the country than ever before given displacement from their homes due to extreme weather events. Women in Pakistan are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to social, cultural, economic, political, and institutional barriers. This calls for greater understanding of the phenomenon causing climate change patterns in the region to enhance knowledge and research on past climate record, periodic trends in climate change, glacier behavior and the processes in glaciated zones of Pakistan in order to devise strategies to counter the menace of climate change for the safety and wellbeing of the communities facing the issue.
About the Speaker: Prof. Dr. Daniel Gavin (https://pages.uoregon.edu/dgavin/) is presently visiting Pakistan in connection with a Project titled: “Enhancing the study of Climate Change and Glaciology in Gilgit-Baltistan through collaboration between Karakoram International University and the University of Oregon”. Prof. Daniel is a biogeographer interested in understanding the present and past responses of Earth’s biota to climate change. His areas of professional interest and expertise include: (1) Quaternary vegetation paleoecology, paleoclimatology, forest ecology, and fire history; Pacific Northwest, Indonesia, and (2) Biogeographic and biodiversity responses to climate change. The overarching theme of his research is the influence of climate change and climate-mediated natural disturbances on the composition and structure of forests, at several scales in space and time. His specific interest lies in reconstructing forest composition and natural disturbances over recent history (hundreds of years) and more distant history (thousands of years) using interdisciplinary research designs. For example, sediment records extending back to the last Ice Age (18,000 years ago) or earlier allow us to address how populations and communities reorganize through periods of fast and slow climate change. Shorter sediment records of only the past 2000 years provide context for human-induced impacts of the last 200 years. And tree-ring records of the past 400 years can be used to address tree population dynamics at annual resolution. While most of his graduate training was in sediment-based paleoecology, he has subsequently branched into other subfields of biogeography.
Organizer
Prof. Dr. M. Qasim Jan (H.I., S.I., T.I), Fellow, Pakistan Academy of Sciences
Coordinators
Muhammad Naseer (Manager IT, PAS)
Contact: (Off.) +92-51-9215478, Cell: +92-345-6083069
Dr. Irum Iqrar (Editor, PAS)
Dr. Riffat M. Qureshi (Director Administration, PAS)